Ford starts pro­ducti­on of new Ran­ger Rap­tor die­sel en­gi­ne

The Ford S­tru­an­da­le En­gi­ne Plant star­ted pro­ducti­on of the new ge­ne­ra­ti­on die­sel en­gi­nes that are set to po­wer the new Ford Ran­ger Rap­tor and se­lected Ran­ger and E­ve­rest mo­dels that will be laun­ched in the first half of 2019.

As­sem­bled on an all-new high-tech as­sem­bly li­ne, the start of pro­ducti­on for the new en­gi­ne pro­gram­me marks an im­por­tant mi­les­to­ne for the Port E­li­za­beth fa­ci­li­ty, which o­pe­ned its doors in 1964 and has pro­du­ced o­ver 3,4-mil­li­on en­gi­nes to da­te.

“With the launch of the new die­sel en­gi­nes, the S­tru­an­da­le En­gi­ne Plant em­barks on a his­to­ric new jour­ney. It al­most dou­bles our com­bi­ned in­stal­led ca­pa­ci­ty to 250 000 u­nits for our two en­gi­ne pro­gram­mes,” says John Ca­me­ron, plant ma­na­ger of the S­tru­an­da­le plant.

As part of Ford’s 2017 in­ves­t­ment of o­ver R3-bil­li­on in its South A­fri­can o­pe­ra­ti­ons, the plant’s new as­sem­bly li­ne has an in­stal­led ca­pa­ci­ty to pro­du­ce up to 120 000 en­gi­nes per y­e­ar.

The new en­gi­ne pro­gram­me starts off with low-vo­lu­me pro­ducti­on for the re­main­der of t­his y­e­ar, then be­gins ram­ping up from e­ar­ly 2019. The new as­sem­bly li­ne will pro­du­ce a to­tal of eig­ht de­ri­va­ti­ves of the en­gi­nes, in­clu­ding the ad­van­ced 157kW and 500Nm bi-tur­bo u­nit.

All the­se en­gi­nes will be sup­p­lied to Ford’s Sil­ver­ton as­sem­bly plant ne­ar P­re­to­ria for in­stal­la­ti­on in the new Ford Ran­ger and E­ve­rest mo­dels and the keen­ly a­wai­ted Ford Ran­ger Rap­tor.

Rein­for­cing its high-tech s­ta­tus, the new sta­te­of-the-art en­gi­ne as­sem­bly li­ne in­cor­po­ra­tes a cy­lin­der he­ad sub-as­sem­bly li­ne that u­ses four ful­ly au­to­ma­ted ro­bots to en­s­u­re the pre­ci­se fit­ment of com­po­nents, as well as high-pres­su­re le­ak tes­ting.

The­re are four mo­re ro­bo­tic sta­ti­ons on the main as­sem­bly li­ne that ap­ply the spe­ci­al room tem­pe­ra­tu­re vul­ca­ni­sing (RTV) si­li­co­ne ga­s­kets. E­ach o­pe­ra­ti­on is mo­ni­to­red by in­te­gra­ted ca­me­ra in­specti­on sy­s­tems that gua­ran­tee the hig­hest le­vels of pre­ci­si­on and qua­li­ty con­t­rol.

E­ach of the 110 as­sem­bly sta­ti­ons al­ong the 312-me­t­re li­ne in­cor­po­ra­tes ex­ten­si­ve er­ror­p­roof­ing and e­very en­gi­ne is sub­jected to an in-depth cold test to ve­ri­fy o­pe­ra­ting pa­ra­me­ters and pres­su­res of all sy­s­tems wit­hout phy­si­cal­ly star­ting the en­gi­ne.

T­his is bac­ked up by a hot test cell to check en­gi­ne pa­ra­me­ters w­hen run­ning, as well as a ful­ly e­quip­ped dy­n­a­mo­me­ter that con­ducts a wi­de ran­ge of per­for­man­ce and du­ra­bi­li­ty tes­ts on se­lected en­gi­nes at pre­de­ter­mi­ned in­ter­vals.

Con­tinuing al­ongs­i­de the new pro­gram­me, the ex­is­ting Du­ra­torq TDCi en­gi­ne pro­gram­me has seen an­nu­al ca­pa­ci­ty in­cre­a­se from 75 000 u­nits in 2011 to a max­i­mum ex­pected ca­pa­ci­ty of up to 130 000 u­nits from the end of 2018. T­his en­gi­ne plat­form will con­ti­nue to be of­fe­red in the ran­ge of vehi­cles pro­du­ced in Sil­ver­ton, and will al­so be ex­por­ted to glo­bal cu­s­to­mers.

In ad­di­ti­on, the S­tru­an­da­le plant’s ma­chi­ning ca­pa­ci­ty for the Du­ra­torq TDCi pro­gram­me has in­cre­a­sed from 220 000 com­po­nent sets (cy­lin­der he­ad, block and cranks­haft) to a peak of up to 280 000 to meet gro­wing de­mand.

Un­der­stand your bud­get and w­hat you can af­ford. The AA al­so re­com­mends kno­wing ex­act­ly w­hat you are paying for w­hen ta­king out car in­su­ran­ce. Re­ad po­li­cy do­cu­ments ca­re­ful­ly. Un­der­stand the cos­ts in­vol­ved if you should claim, as well as how the ex­ces­ses on your po­li­cy are struc­tu­red. Alt­hough car in­su­ran­ce po­li­cies with lo­wer monthly pre­mi­ums may seem at­tracti­ve, re­mem­ber that t­hey may fall s­hort w­hen it’s ti­me to claim.

WAYS TO SAVE

Con­si­der bund­ling in­su­ran­ce po­li­cies with one in­su­rer. Most of­ten, bund­ling mul­ti­ple cars to­get­her or e­ven bund­ling your car and ho­me in­su­ran­ce will gi­ve sub­stan­ti­al sa­vings. Se­cu­ri­ty me­a­su­res li­ke a car tracking de­vi­ce may al­so help lo­wer pre­mi­ums, as well as par­king in a se­cu­re spot and ha­ving a pro­fes­si­o­nal dri­ving per­mit.

Are the­re any pen­al­ties for clai­ming within the first six mont­hs, or in the first y­e­ar? W­hat is the tur­na­round ti­me for claims? Will you be co­ve­r­ed if ot­hers dri­ve your car? If you are, find out if the­re’s a dif­fe­ren­ce in the co­vera­ge de­pen­ding on the age of the dri­ver. T­his could be im­por­tant if you ha­ve child­ren who bor­row the car.

Is the car co­ve­r­ed for re­sa­le or full re­tail va­lue?

Is the in­su­ran­ce com­pre­hen­si­ve in­su­ran­ce? Are the­re any li­mi­ta­ti­ons on w­he­re or w­hen you can dri­ve your car?

If so­mething hap­pens to the car, is car hi­re in­clu­ded whi­le it’s being re­pai­red or re­pla­ced?